Nothing More Than a Hologram
by sylphie3000
Summary: Amy finds the Doctor in a rather unusual room, with people she doesn't recognize. Who are they, and what's the Doctor doing with them?


**A/N: hey guys, me again with Doctor Who. This is an idea that I've had for a while, so I hope you like it? I feel like there should be an exclamation point there too, but that would look weird. Oh, and I don't own Doctor Who, **_**by the way**_**. Anyways, here we go. Allons-y!**

Amelia Pond rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes as she walked towards the Console Room. It was earlier than she usually got up, but she just couldn't stay asleep, what with Rory kicking her and stealing the blankets every five seconds. She passed the kitchen, a couple hallways, hung a left…and stopped dead in her tracks. There was a voice she didn't recognize, coming from a room that sounded close by. The sound was muffled, so she couldn't make out a lot of the words, but she did hear a girl, a northern accent, and…was that an American? On the TARDIS? Amy turned to the right and walked straight ahead, the voices getting louder which each step.

Finally, to her left again, there it was. A strange room, dim and retro and grimy, all yellow with teal lights shining off the shiny knobs and levers assembled somewhat haphazardly on what seemed like…a TARDIS central control console. The last notes of a song from a long time ago strained and played along the room, and a short peroxide-blonde girl and a rather large man with extremely close-cropped black hair in a leather jacket were dancing, quite badly too. Behind them, near the doors, a tall-ish man in what seemed like a WW2 era officer's jacket looked around in bewilderment.

"-and turn…" the girl said. The large man obliged, turning slowly before trying to spin her and winds up twisting her arm behind her back rather sharply. She stepped out of his grasp and rubbed her arm for a second before looking at the large man and smiling. "Okay, okay, try and spin me again, but this time don't get my arm up my back!" The large man's back was turned towards her, but Amy could guess his expression -embarrassed. The blonde girl laughed again. "No points for a half-nelson!"

The leather-clad man crossed his arms and went around the Console a bit, enough so Amy could see his face at least. He had a cheery face, with expressive light blue eyes, and ears that stuck out a bit on the either side of his face, making him look slightly ridiculous. He had a slightly dorky grin that reminded her a lot of the Doctor. Speaking of, where was he? Shouldn't he be here, with the strange trio and the changed-up Console Room? Or do some people just kind of live in the TARDIS like a miniature civilization, doing their own thing and not bothering the Doctor or his companions in the slightest? Amy pondered these questions while the large man spoke to the bloke in the army uniform.

"Close the door, will you? Your ships about to blow up, there's gonna be a draft," the large man said, walking farther towards the Console and flicking a switch. The blonde leaned against one of the many pillars in the room and grinned at the young man in the uniform. The leather-clad bloke flipped a switch and smiled at the younger man again. "Welcome to the TARDIS."

So they _did _know what the TARDIS was called, then. This raised a hell of a lot more questions than it answered, but Amy decided to watch for a bit longer before going to get the Doctor. These people were really interesting, and besides, what could be the harm in watching a couple learn to dance? Well, besides being a peeping tom, that is.

"Much bigger on the inside…" the uniformed man said. It was obviously his first time in the TARDIS. Amy almost burst out laughing at the expression on his face. It pretty much summed up how she had felt when she had first walked into the TARDIS and saw just how very _big_ it was on the inside.

"You'd better be," the leather-clad man said seriously. Amy didn't get the meaning, and neither did the uniformed bloke either, judging by the look on his face. The blonde apparently understood, though, and directed her grin towards the younger man.

"I think what the Doctor's trying to say is…you can cut in," she said somewhat shyly. The officer stepped towards her and took her hand, flashing her a confident grin that she returned en force, but Amy wasn't paying attention.

_The Doctor? That's not the Doctor, that's…that's…I don't know who that is but that is most certainly __not__ the Doctor. He's not…they're not…what? _Amy thought, trying to get a hold of the situation at hand.

The leather-clad "Doctor" cut in suddenly, walking towards the pair and snapping his fingers, effectively eliciting a slightly stunned silence from the two by the door and cutting off Amy's train of thought simultaneously. "Rose! I've just remembered!" he said joyously, coming closer to the pair and sounding for all the world like he just had the epiphany of a lifetime.

"What?" Rose said, raising one eyebrow at him and quirking one side of her face up in a lopsided grin.

In time with the Doctor's snapping, "In the Mood" by Glenn Miller comes on through the speakers. "I can dance!" he said, and you could actually _hear_ the dorky smile in his voice and he stopped on the top of the steps by Rose and the young bloke, still snapping his fingers.

"Actually, Doctor…I thought Jack might like this dance," she said, looking nervous. The grin on her face spread, though, and she let go of Jack's hand to let hers fall at her side.

Unfazed, the Doctor (that still wasn't Amy's Doctor) replied "I'm sure he would, Rose. But who with?" This was apparently the right thing to say, because both Jack and Rose sniggered, and Rose jumped up the steps into the Doctor's arms. They started dancing perfectly, spinning and jumping about. Jack watches the pair with a huge smile across his face, like he's in on some super-secret schoolyard inside joke that he's not going to share with the others in his company. The Doctor dipped Rose, eliciting yet more laughter and a slight blush from Rose. Jack clapped and Rose sagged onto the Doctor's shoulder, one of the brightest smiles Amy had ever seen in her entire life on her face.

When suddenly, they just disappeared, fizzling out of existence like morning mist. The teal and yellow lights dimmed, leaving the Console room looking like a ghost of its former self. Amy let out a gasp of surprise, and immediately, from a corner that had been out of sight, the Doctor, the real, proper Doctor was right in front her, surprised and fuming. His eyes were all red and puffy, with shadows under them. He looked like he'd been clubbed in the face by a baseball bat, then had gotten a sunburn over it –in other words, he'd been crying.

"What," the Doctor said, barely hiding his irritation at being found, "are you doing here, Pond?" he crossed his arms, trying, and failing miserably, to look nonchalant about the whole thing.

"I-I…well, you see, I was just uh...walkin' down the hall, yeah? And I heard voices comin' from over here, so I came…" she stammered as she tried to explain herself.

The Doctor let out a breath. "It's a little early for you to be up, isn't it Amelia?" he sounded slightly relieved, although he was obviously still upset. Amy frowned at his use of her full name; he never used it unless he was worried or upset at her.

"Couldn't sleep," she muttered darkly, crossing her arms and cursing Rory's name. "_Rory_ kept kickin' me. Ah oh is he going to _pay for it later._"

The Doctor shot her one of his famous 12-millisecond grins before uncrossing his arms and rubbing the back of his neck, something he only did if he was embarrassed. "So, Pond. Exactly…how much of that did you see?"

Amy laughed and thought back. "_Now turn…_" she mimicked Rose's voice with a highly affected Londoner's accent, and the Doctor's face fell a little.

"The whole thing, then?" he seemed almost terrified at the thought of Amy witnessing the entirety of…whatever it was that happened in there.

"Yeah, I guess I did. But what _was_ that? And what's all this? The Console…thingy," she gestured behind him into the dark room. "Why did that man call himself the Doctor? And who's Rose?"

The Doctor looked at her for a moment, and opened his mouth. _Well, he might actually tell me something for once_, Amy thought, but he closed his mouth again and blurted out "Nothing. They were nothing. No one. And this…well, this is…"

"Nothing?" Amy finished for him. He brightened and gave her a quick pat on the head.

"Exactly! Nothing. That's what this is. Now come along, Pond, we have places we need to go today, and I think the grocery store's first on the list. I'm out of jammy dodgers…" he walked off, Amy in tow, babbling about whatever it was they needed to do in the next couple of weeks, but she wasn't really paying attention to him; she was too busy pondering what had happened to hang on to the Doctor's every ramble.

~oOo~

It was about two weeks later when Amy finally confronted the Doctor about the mysterious whats-its that she saw in what she assumed to be an older Console Room of the TARDIS.

They had just gotten back from a planet in the same galaxy as something called _Raxicoricofallipitorius,_ or something really complicated along those lines. Neither Amy or Rory could seem to get the pronunciation right, and this frustrated the Doctor to no end, sending him off in the other direction more than once, muttering under his breath. Seeing as the trip was strictly sight-seeing this time around, it had been short with the Doctor all irritated and Amy exhausted. She still hadn't been sleeping very well; Rory turned out to be more of a turner than expected and kept kicking her out of bed in the wee hours of the morning. But no matter how early she got up, she never did find the Doctor in that old Console Room again, or hear any more unexpected voices.

The three of them walked into the TARDIS with different levels of enthusiasm. The Doctor bounded up the steps to the Console like a kid at Christmas, Rory walked up like a normal person and said he was going to take a shower, he'll be back in a tick, and Amy slogged through the door, up the stairs and crashed into a chair near the Doctor. He ignored her, and started flipping switches and turning dials. They were well into the time vortex before Amy could summon the pure motivation to speak.

"So," Amy half-slurred, sounding like she had had a shot or two. "Those…thingies, in the place the other day…what were they?"

"The _thingies_? In the _place_? Pond, are you alright?" the Doctor shot her a concerned look.

"No I'm not. I'm bloody tired. And, you know, the _thingies_. The people, in the yellow…room, from the other day. What were they?" she looked at him through a curtain of her hair.

He rubbed his face with both of his hands, dragging them down slowly like he always did when he was caught between a rock and a hard place. "Do we have to talk about them now?" His voice had a slight whine in it, like a child trying to be mature but still hasn't gotten the hang of it.

"Them? So they _are _people then," she muttered, trying to work things out by hearing her own voice.

"They were. Once," She didn't mean for him to hear her, but had completely forgotten about the whole superior-Timelord-biology thing, so of course he did. He wasn't looking at her, instead fixed pointedly on the monitor.

"Come again?"

"Technically, they were holograms. Figments of my memory, as seen from the TARDIS. Otherwise, it would have been from my point of view. But once, they were real. Here, with me," he spoke softly, the words weighted with age as he spoke of the events of around a hundred years ago.

"Who were they?" she asked the question gently, trying not to set off his random temper. He didn't like to talk about his past, and was prone to outbursts of anger when people tried to get him to. But now, he just sighed softly.

"My friends. And me. Well, the old me. Old-old me," he smiled at some inside joke and laughed softly.

"The…old…you? What?" Amy was confused now, not bothering to be all that gentle with her questions.

"Ah… a question for another day, Pond. As to who they were, they were my friends. Captain Jack Harkness, and…" he took a breath "Rose. Rose Tyler. That's who they were," the Doctor gave a sad little half-smile before brightening and giving Amy a full-fledged grin. "And the room you saw, that used to be this place. The Console room, that is. Grungy, wasn't it? I had bad taste back then."

"Says the man with the bowtie," Amy laughed and dropped the subject of his past. He obviously didn't want to talk about it anymore, and she was too tired to continue pursuing the matter.

"Hey! Bowties. Are. Cool." He pointed at her for a second and straightened his bowtie. Either way, I'll be off. I have some…things to do. Need to fix the pool, some of the water jets aren't running properly. I'll see you later, yeah?"

"Alright, if you're gonna swan off on me, then I'll be off too. Gonna try to catch up on some lost sleep," She walked with the Doctor for a bit, until they hit the intersection that had led Amy off to the old Console Room. There, he turned a right and gave Amy a little wave before setting off down the hall.

"Doctor?" she said, making him stop in his tracks. He turned around and gave her a rather curious look.

"Yeah?"

"The pool was back there." She gestured back down the way they came, giving him a knowing smile.

"Oh. Well. I just had to go this way to get…something. Big, Timelord thing. I'll–" he stopped mid-babble when Amy walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Amy, what're you doing?"

"I'm sorry about your friends, Doctor," she whispered in his ear, and just like that, she was gone, her long ginger hair swinging as she walked back down the hallway to her room, leaving him standing there dumbfounded.

He shook his head and continued on the way to his old Console Room. Flicking a few buttons, he selected a memory, a hologram started, and the Doctor cried.


End file.
